This isn’t easy to talk about, but it would be great if you did: A psychology podcast promoting awareness
Over the course of my four years attending Champlain College, I’ve met a lot of different people. I’ve made friends, I’ve lost some friends, and I’ve seen people I’ve had in multiple classes and worked on group projects with only to never interact with them again.
The environment of a college campus is a kaleidoscope of personalities and individuals that come from different areas of life with the preconception that it is unlikely for them to have something in common with the other members of their college community. It’s not uncommon for first-year students to have the sensation of feeling as though they are in over their depth with the cutthroat environment of post-secondary education — Heaven forbid you have dreams of ever making it big in your field, right?
My personal story at Champlain is filled with a lot these experiences; feeling as though I’m vastly different from my peers and I won’t ever really be able to relate to them, but during my final year I started recognizing that I have a lot more in common with them and with the Champlain community as a whole, but I never got a chance to realize this thread of connection between myself and my peers until I had a chance to sit down and talk with them.
For my senior capstone project at Champlain, I wanted to explore this sensation I had felt — about feeling as though you are so far removed from your own sense of community and where you stand in society, and turn myself into a personal vehicle for those who may have experienced something similar. Over the course of the semester, I created a podcast called “This isn’t easy to talk about but…” where I would sit down with a guest or two and break down a topic that the person wanted to go over. The five episodes I created talked about burnout and the pandemic, anxiety in every day life, adjusting to post-graduation life, the constant ever-growing list of expectations of a young adult going to college, and the Herculean task of balancing a work-life, social-life, and academic-life while being a fulltime student.
The podcast itself ended up feeling very grassroots and organic; after all, it consisted of me sitting in a Zoom call with my friends talking about how much we dislike online learning and how I have been getting anxious in grocery stores lately. Often times, after finishing the podcast recordings, my friends and I would sit in the Zoom call catching up on our personal lives but also remarked how they enjoyed the feeling of the podcast; how important it is for young adults to be reminded and have the sense of community that they aren’t alone with all the anger, confusion and anxiety they feel about the society we live in these days (pandemic notwithstanding).
The mental health resources that one can find online are often created by these highly educated milquetoast specialists that went and acquired their education over a decade ago. There isn’t much in terms of mental health awareness information and resources created by people in the younger generations, instead they often feel preached to by these older individuals that have already had a number of years since they graduated from college telling them how to manage their symptoms of anxiety while dealing with a full class load and a part time job. It’s one thing to be provided some information by someone who’s already adjusted to their environment and established their professional life, it’s another thing to hear it from someone who’s also dealing with the challenges of trying to figure out and establish what it is they want their life to look like.
So, all this to say, why did I decide to make a podcast? Since the beginning of the pandemic around this time last year, I had gotten more and more into different types of media — specifically movies, TV shows and podcasts. Podcasts are exceptionally unique since, well, anyone can make one. Podcasts can also be as casual and entertaining or as informative and educational as the host wants. The other interesting and contributing factor is a lot of the time, the emphasis is placed on the guests to be engaging and provide interesting narratives for the audience to listen and enjoy. If the audience can identify with the guest and relate to them in some capacity, it’s more likely for the engagement of the podcast to grow. This factor is incredibly important for a capstone focused around promoting mental health awareness and psychological wellbeing — why should my college campus care about my project?
The reoccurring sentiment that a lot of my friends and listeners expressed to me is how natural and organic the podcast felt to listen to; it felt as though I was just simply having a conversation with my friends over our experiences at school. This feeling of community and expression of the relationships I have with my guests provides personal anecdotal narratives of common issues us young adults have faced while at school; the feeling of being overburdened by assignments, forgetting to eat regularly, having a terrible sleep schedule, feeling anxious that you won’t make any friends or no one will like you, being anxious about your future and not sure what career path to take, feeling the expectation of attending a graduate program, and having to maintain a job while attending a full schedule of classes.
These are all highly relatable topics that speak to a great number of students, and yet it’s not uncommon for people to feel as though they have no connection or relationship with their peers during college. My goal with this project was to help promote awareness of these mental health challenges and struggles in hopes that the community I was apart of for four years grows closer together and fosters recognition that more can be done on our part as students to support each other as well as we can, and more can be done on our institution’s part in terms of providing resources from their fellow peers on how to form long-lasting connections and bonds with one another instead of having this perceived isolation that no one else has experienced these issues before, and that they aren’t alone — it just isn’t easy to talk about.
